I can't believe how did you people forget the old - and still played on many handhelds right now - classics like maniac mansion, alien breed, beneath a steel sky, cadaver and elite (especially its second installment frontier)...

Xenogears and Chrono Trigger are both amazing games, though good like finding either. I'll agree with earlier comments, though, ignore their successors. Pretend they don't exist. Just not worth the time. Further retro-gaming advice (though you'll have to find an emulator for this, copies are impossible to find) is Secret of Mana, for the SNES. Loads of fun, great gameplay, and the most whimsical RPG I've ever played.

Some cult games that I enjoy are the Kingdom Hearts games. Done by SquareEnix (which can be either a point in their favor or against, depending on who you talk to), they are action/RPGs set in Disney Worlds. The plots are pretty well written, the worlds are faithfully (and particularly the first, gorgeously!) rendered, and the gameplay is a seamless blend of run-and-gun hectic-nes, and more traditional RPG menu-driven fare. The characters and themes can be a little cheesey, but if you can get past that, both are thoroughly enjoyable.

As for an under-recognized game.....Odin Sphere, release for the PS2 only a few short months ago. This is another action/RPG, but this time it is side-scrolling gameplay, with all the "levels" and menus placed in circles rather than lists. The visuals on this game are absolutely jaw-dropping. Done in an anime style, all the characters, NPCs, vendors, even the backgrounds seem to breathe life. Seriously, I can't say enough about it. As for plot, the game is split into five storylines (each divided into six or seven "chapters") that follow five different characters, all set in the same world at the same time. But don't be confused: certain key events change depending on which character your playing, sometimes affecting other characters, sometimes not. Sound is also very important, with a fully-scored soundtrack, and complete voice-overs, with the option(!) to have those voice-overs in English or the original Japanese. Considering that speech bubbles are also provided, I would personally recommend going with the Japanese, as the "sound" of the voices just suits the atmosphere much better.

I found this stand up arcade shooter one year in a video game tent at the Del Mar Fair when I was 12 and it was so creepy and over the top that I had my own little Bradbury "Something Wicked" moment. It was like finding a snuff film. It felt like getting away with something which made it all the more thrilling, of course. It wasn't a good game at all but it made an impression. Apparently the game did very well in 3rd world countries but was rare even when new in the US.

Oh yeah, going back to my days as a commodore 64 player, there were a couple of games that kept me going far beyond my interest in games. Zak McCracken and the Alien Mindbenders was the first LucasArts game I'd played that really worked for me. I'd played the Labyrinth film tie-in and Maniac Mansion, but there was something either two difficult or too unyielding about the game logic and I lost interest. To be honest it doesn't take much to make me lose interest in a game. My skillz are'nt mad and I'm not much for the repetititiveness that can result when someone with my low skill-level has to practise a scene over and over to get to the next one, and i'm pretty picky about the rewards I expect for the effort I have to put in. Zak worked within all of those arbitrary limits.

It was the sense of humour that got me. You play a tabloid journalist who gets assigned to cover reports of a killer two-headed squirrel, and the night before heading out he has this dream about aliens and a beautiful woman. So as the game goes along you uncover this alien conspiracy to use a giant ray gun to make everyone on earth stupider than the aliens so that they can take over the planet. Along the way you get to meet two girls who converted their VW van into a spaceship and went to the pyramids on mars, you get to possess various animals (including your own goldfish) and you get to make the most use of a pair of groucho marx nose-glasses that any world-saviour could expect.

It was the first game I'd played that had cutaway film sequences, and the first game I'd played that had a narrative structure. I was hooked.

Years later I found myself downloading a bunch of german techno remixes of the theme song and the nostalgia washed over me like surf.

And thanks heaps for all the game recommendations. As a mac user and an nonplatformowner I"m limited to what I can partake of, but it's a great list indeed. Looking forward to it continuing.

Bionic Commando fans, I'm sure you already know there's a remake/sequel on the way. If only they could keep the music from the original. Only the C64 works of Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway topped it.

The only thing that's cheered me up more than finding out there are other pockets of Psychonauts fandom out there is hearing that Rez is coming out on Xbox Live Arcade. Wasn't that game made by Harmonix, the geniuses behind Guitar Hero I, II, and Rock Band?

If you want good gaming without dropping a ridiculous amount on a console, I would heartily suggest a Nintendo DS. Tons of games, which debut at 20-25% less than a console game, and a huge back catalogue. Platformers, action, RPGs, puzzle games, strategy, even rhythm-based gaming, the DS has got it all. And some of the uses of the stylus for gameplay are just impressive, notably the new Zelda.

Don't get me wrong, the PSP is a good buy, and the firmware modding gives it a good deal more use, but out of the box, the DS just gives you more bang for your buck.

The two best computer pure puzzle games in existence: The Fool's Errand and 3 in Three are both Mac native. And they're also playable on Windows/Intel Macs with emulators. Get them here at their creator's website.

The Fool's Errand - Help the Fool unravel the enchantments placed on the Tarot-inspired fantasy landscape by the evil High Priestess, decipher the Sun's Map, and recover the Fourteen Lost Treasures of the Land. The interesting thing about this game is that as you solve each puzzle you reveal different pieces of the story scroll and the Sun's map. Once you've solved all the puzzles on the story scroll you get the complete story of the Fool's journey through the land but he hasn't won yet. You then have to solve the Sun's map and using it and what you've learned from the story to restore the treasures.

3 in Three - During a freak electric store a poor little 3 was knocked off her spreadsheet into the depths of the computer. Help guide her back to the spreadsheet through the internal landscape of the computer populated by dumb letters, arbitrary AIs, and malevolent irrational numbers. This game is also a metapuzzle like the one above (solving the individual puzzles gives you the clues to solve a larger puzzle), although the metapuzzle here isn't as pronounced as in Fool's Errand.

At the Carnival is also okay but it lacks the story of Fool's Errand and 3 in Three. Also its metapuzzle is the weakest of the three. But if you enjoy the puzzles in Fool's Errand and 3 in Three it's also worth a play through.

I'de like to throw in on the side of the Oddworld Games, specifically Abes Oddyssey and Abes Exodus. Both games were set in an interesting, colorful and fully realized world. In addition, the gameplay was a fantastic combination of puzzel-solver and frenetic platformer, requiring both decent reasoning skills and good reflexes. Besides, any game with a combination of dark humor and fart jokes will always sell me.

I tried playing Munch's Oddyssey but it really seemed like the dropped the ball on that one and I didn't finish it. I recently picked up a copy of Strangers Wrath out of a bargin bin and have been quite impressed so far.